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In reply to the discussion: Party Loyalty [View all]H2O Man
(73,513 posts)And I'm not just saying that -- I really do absolutely love your response here!
I think that you have nailed an important point that I didn't give as much attention to in the OP as I should have. If we look back at McGovern's campaign, for example, it was largely composed of activists. McGovern certainly attracted a lot of other support in the primaries -- I'm sure that you remember when he started targeting bowling alleys during the period where he came from behind to take the lead.
But by the time of the Convention, other activists threw their support behind McGovern. Maybe the most important group, in my mind, were those who had supporter Shirley Chisholm. What a beautiful, powerful lady she was! And, unlike at any time before, there were what were known at the time as the women's lib and gay lib forces.
It's still sad to remember that influential people in the party, such as George Meany, turned on McGovern -- he became a Blue Meanie, quite literally, who openly supported Nixon. Meany was a prisoner of the lies and hatreds of his generation: he saw what was really the first national "Rainbow Coalition" as the enemy of labor, rather than democracy in action.
It's no coincidence, of course, that both examples of "anyone but ___" that I spoke of, were attacks on those who represented the rainbow.